and additional publications. In 1924, the year of
the first contest, first-place winners included JOHN
MATHEUS,LANGSTONHUGHES, and E. FRANKLIN
FRAZIER.
The journal’s future began to change dramati-
cally in the spring of 1928. Charles Johnson re-
signed as editor and moved to Nashville, where he
joined the faculty of FISKUNIVERSITYand would,
in 1946, become the first African-American presi-
dent of the institution. The journal’s editorial staff
now included Ira De Reid as research director and
ELMERCARTERas editor. During the World War II
era, the monthly journal became a quarterly publi-
cation. The last issue was published in the winter
of 1947.
Opportunitywas one of the most influential
publications of the Harlem Renaissance era. Each
issue shed light on the key political agendas of the
day, the range of cultural awareness and trends,
and the nature of the art and literary aesthetics of
the period.
Bibliography
Gilpin, Patrick, and Marybeth Gasman. Charles S. John-
son: Leadership Beyond The Veil in the Age of Jim
Crow.Albany: State University of New York Press,
2003.
Johnson, Abby Arthur, and Ronald Maberry Johnson.
Propaganda & Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of
African-American Magazines in the Twentieth Cen-
tury.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1979.
Robbins, Richard. Sidelines Activist: Charles S. Johnson
and the Struggle for Civil Rights.Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1996.
Our Women: Past, Present, and Future
Hallie Quinn Brown(1925)
One of two books that HALLIEQUINNBROWN,an
accomplished educator, elocutionist, and women’s
activist, published in 1925. Our Womenappeared
one year before HOMESPUNHEROINES:WOMEN
OFDISTINCTION(1926), perhaps her most well-
known compilation. The Eckerle Printing Com-
pany of Xenia, Ohio, republished the book in 1940.
Brown published the work just one year after
she completed an active four-year term as presi-
dent of the NATIONALASSOCIATION OFCOLORED
WOMEN. The volume represented her continued
commitment to documenting the heroic accom-
plishments of African-American women and to ex-
horting her contemporaries to work together to
improve the social conditions and professional op-
portunities for women of color.Bibliography
Daniel, Sadie Iola, Charles Wesley, and Thelma Perry.
Women Builders. Washington, D.C.: Associated
Publishers, 1970.
Kates, Susan. Activist Rhetorics and American Higher Edu-
cation, 1885–1937.Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 2001.
McFarlin, Annjennette Sophie. Hallie Quinn Brown:
Black Woman Elocutionist.Ann Arbor, Mich.: Uni-
versity Microfilms, 1975.Outlet
The first of several literary magazines that the en-
terprising writer WALLACE THURMAN founded
during the Harlem Renaissance. Thurman devel-
oped plans for Outletin 1924 while he was living in
Los Angeles and working as associate editor at the
African-American newspaper The Pacific Defender.
It was Thurman’s hope that the magazine
would become a West Coast complement to East
Coast literary magazines such as THECRISISand
OPPORTUNITY that celebrated African-American
creativity and published emerging writers of the
day. The journal lasted for six months before Thur-
man ceased publication and relocated to NEW
YORKCITY, where he became an integral part of
the Harlem Renaissance movement.Bibliography
van Notten, Eleonore. Wallace Thurman’s Harlem Renais-
sance.Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994.Ovington, Mary White(1865–1951)
One of the most influential reformers of the 20th
century and a cofounder of the NATIONALASSO-
CIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOLORED
PEOPLE(NAACP).
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Unitarians
and abolitionists Theodore and Ann Ketcham Ov-
ington, she was part of the activist world of late
19th-century America. She was a student atOvington, Mary White 407